The BBC has to stop messing with the schedule! I had to wait two weeks for this, and the next episode isn’t for another two weeks. Boooo. Rugby keeps getting in the way. They’re doing an excellent job with getting guest stars on this show that leave a lasting impression, and finally Rochefort seems to be evening out to a villain that’s interesting to watch. He’s still mustache twirling evil, but it suits him now. Previously on The Musketeers, Anne gave birth to the dauphin who is actually Aramis’ son, and he seduced the baby’s governess to keep an eye on him. The Captain is hiding information about Porthos’ father. Milady managed to seduce her way into the King’s bed. Constance is Anne’s new BFF and lady in waiting. Rochefort is the new bad guy, he’s formerly the Cardinal’s man who was in prison in Spain for awhile. Now he’s back and he’s obsessed with Anne, although we still don’t know how the two became friends in the first place.

This episode is about a peasant woman named Emilie who keeps having these visions and the French peasants are getting riled up by her. They believe God is talking to her, turning them against Spain. We already know tensions are high between Spain and France, because they have been for weeks now, and now the people are angry about it. They have started attacking Spanish citizens in the town. Aramis is sent in to infiltrate Emilie’s group, saying that he deserted the Musketeers and wants to know more about her cause. She does appear to have visions, vivid ones, and her mother tells him that it’s been happening for a long time, but when she was younger it caused the civilians to hate her. Now she’s a hero. She keeps insisting on seeing the King, and he wants the Musketeers to handle it without causing more drama. However, the Musketeers are somewhat distracted protecting the Spanish Ambassador, since the tensions running high means he’s in danger from more than one place. Rochefort is the most fatal. The Ambassador stupidly sends Rochefort’s mistress (who has been dressing like Anne for him) to kill him, and so he’s like whelp what goes around, comes around. He finds an unwilling assassin in the form of Milady.

Milady seems to be fairly comfortable just being the King’s new mistress. She refuses to show him under her scarf, because it’s where the rope marks are from when she was hung. I’m curious why she hasn’t just come up with a really good story by now about why she has it. Rochefort very aggressively confronts her, and blackmails her with the truth of her background so she’ll assassinate the Ambassador for him. I thought the two might work together, but this makes sense too; they are both former creatures of the Cardinal, but they have to live in the world without him now. Milady says she wanted to be the mistress and not kill anyone else, and maybe she meant it at the time, but eventually she probably would have some reason to kill. Another woman getting the King’s eye, for example. Or Athos. Just kidding. She’ll never kill Athos and he’ll never kill her because they’re obsessed with each other. I dig messed up relationships, so it’s fun to see the two of them be angsty and angry at each other. I’m calling it now, those two are going to have sex by the end of the season. Hate sex. Anyway, she kills the Ambassador with a little poison prick in his hand. Mission accomplished. The King is furious the Musketeers let him die, and to be fair, considering how many f’ed up things have happened lately, it makes sense he would fire Captain Treville. Which is what he does. Sure he’s misguided, but in his eyes, the Captain’s had like four really big failures recently. People get fired, it happens.

Anne knows that the King is into Milady and she’s desperate to be useful somehow, so she believes that going to Emilie’s camp will help the cause. Greeeeat. She’s just lucky she survives it! She meets up with Aramis, and Constance learns the truth of their affair, although not the dauphin’s birth itself. Unless she assumes that. In the end they realize that Emilie’s been fed poison/hallucinogens by her mother all this time, and she doesn’t have visions at all. Athos helps her detox from it, and she reveals the truth to the peasants afterward. They all disperse. It’s a sad ending, since she was a good person, and their cause wasn’t completely wrong. But it’s probably healthier for everyone that they don’t storm the city or kill all the Spanish they can find. Bonus points for the show having someone comment on the fact that Santiago/Aramis is Spanish. He says he’s French, because the character is, but the actor is not, and I laughed.

Rochefort has officially managed to become really good villain material by sheer creepiness. He’s creepily obsessed with Anne and has his mistress dress as her. And then strangles her to death and sends her ear to the Ambassador. He blackmails Milady into murdering his foe, and then pins it on the Musketeers so Treville is fired. He knows that the dauphin’s governess is having an affair with Aramis and makes her spy on Anne for him. He’s violent and sociopathic and a little unstable, and it works. I was iffy on him before, he seems too much at times, but now that he seems to have a real plan in motion I’m getting a good groove with him as the bad guy. I just hope Milady kills him. That seems like the most obvious answer, right? A lady should definitely get to kill him, he’s a misogynistic creepy jerk. Right now the Musketeers have to worry about Treville getting fired. Other things of note: Porthos questioned Treville about his father, he knows something is up. Constance and D’Artagnan have a sweet scene when she talks to him about Milady. Athos chooses to have D’Artagnan drink with him instead of by himself, that’s nice. That pretty doctor shows up and makes more eyes at Constance, what’s up with that? All in all a good episode!